no expectation that even a ghost of the hundreds of
visitors who visit the Abbey on a typical day would
appear on the paper during the two to six hour
exposures. But looking at these pictures there is a
presence of all who have ever walked there.
Inversion of the negatives also reversed the colors to
hues unknown to Talbot. Some of these were retained
in the exhibition prints while other
positives were manipulated to
reflect the amazing, though fugitive,
colors one might expect from an
original photogenic drawing from
Talbot���s time. The negatives are
exhibited in their actual photogenic
colors, which continue to change
every time we expose them to light.
Our conceptual approach was
also tempered by climatic events
beyond our control. Where Talbot
might have put his cameras aside due to insufficient
sunlight, we agreed that the light that surrounds a
subject is as important as that which falls upon it.
Looking upward we noticed that the trees within the
Abbey walls and in the surrounding fields were easily
described by the sky around them. And so, we began
to photograph the sky, even in the driving rain.
HYLAND
